Stevie Nicks recalled how she wrote the Fleetwood Mac classic “Dreams” in just 20 minutes after being given access to a “magic room” that the other band members didn't know about.

Fleetwood Mac were nearly finished recording demos for 1977's Rumours when she felt the need to escape their studio and explore the musical idea running through her head.

“[W]e were up at the Record Plant in San Francisco and were almost done with the 12 demos,” Nicks told Yahoo Entertainment. “Everybody was working on something else in the main studio, and I had this idea. I was kind of wandering around the studio, looking for somewhere where I could curl up with my Fender Rhodes and my lyrics and a little cassette tape recorder. And this guy who I didn’t even know said, ‘Are you looking for a place to go and play?’ I said, ‘I am. I have a song in my head and I want to record it.’ And he said, ‘OK, now, you can never tell anybody, but I have a place where you can go.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh my God, a magic room! Oh my God, I’ll never tell anybody.’”

He led her down a hallway and unlocked a “full-on studio that none of us ever knew existed in this building — and we’d been there for like three months!” She continued: “It’s a big studio with a sunken circular shape, actually like a lighthouse, like a circle, and there’s keyboards all around, a bunch of keyboards that went down this tunnel kind of thing. And then over to the side was this big half-moon circular bed with all black and red velvet. It sounds a little garish, but it was actually beautiful. And I said, ‘What is this?’ And he said, ‘This is Sly Stone’s studio.’”

After being assured that Stone wouldn’t mind Nicks using the room, she settled on the bed and “vibed out for 15 or 20 minutes.” She said: “I just started playing — and I started playing ‘Dreams.’ And within about 20 minutes, it was written and recorded – I mean, super-simply, but nevertheless, I thought, ‘Thank you, Sly Stone and the spirits of Sly Stone and all of your band.’ And so I walked out back down the hallway and I walked into Fleetwood Mac’s studio, and I said, ‘Listen up, everybody. I think I have something that you want to hear.’ I played them a little recording of ‘Dreams,’ and we recorded that song that night.”

Nicks reflected on the song’s new lease on life as a result of Nathan Apodaca’s viral video, saying: “People needed a little bit of magic. I think it’s a little bit of magic.”

Fleetwood Mac - ‘Dreams’

 

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